The Last Oath
by HallowSinner
Summary: "I need to leave Tortuga. If you help me hide, I will pay you. I don't have much…" She muttered unsurely, fishing in her baggy trousers for currency. "No, you do not." He agreed, looking at her crotch. "Why you wear those is a pure wonder."
1. Chapter one: Deadlights

**Mandatory gibberish: **I don't own the franchise. If I did...hell, not even then. Slavery is abolished...

_Lover heart, this is my last Oath to you._

* * *

><p>The hot June sun dunked into an intagible horizon while curling bows of pinkish glow flashed around and imprinted the sky.<p>

The Caribbean Sea wavered softly with the summer breeze, each ripple mirroring the sunset in an iridescent nebula.

Amid the water folds, a broad ship sailed proudly towards the port of an island of which the Spanish name stood for a dome shelled reptile with the pace of a snail wading through mud.

Tortuga.

The ship was aloof to the city and its people. A horde of sailors had thronged up on the dock, squinting at it inanely. As it approached nigh, they could see a transcription next to a queer skull-shaped figurehead, on the nearing hull.

_Ondine._

"Is that French?" Groaned a rawboned man, turning to look at his seaport comrades. The flock shrugged at him and resumed ogling the daunting vessel, entranced. The skinny man threw a hand in abandon and went back to the cargo he was shipping.

A fat dodderer in a grubby striped flannel shirt pushed through the mass and scrutinized the ship, frowning.

Spitting to his left, he motioned a boy over with a crooked forefinger and whispered to him to go fetch his flintlock. The boy looked at him in dismay.

Old Jones was not a violent man. God forbid, he barely kept track of his walking, let alone gun fighting.

Seeing his unsettled complexion, Old Jones nodded towards the arriving ship and said to the boy.

**"**That, my boy, be a fine buccaneer the wind is driving to our port. Now ye never know, a smart man is a careful one. Wipe off yer jib hangin' and go fetch me weapon, understood?"

In other words, stranger meant danger, the boy fathomed. Old Jones swore only by the dictum.

Before he sprinted away to Old Jones' cabin, the lad paused to assess the ship with a look of amazement on his snotty face.

It was a grand ship indeed.

And whoever was behind that helm, was either some high class swindler or a bloody merchant from hell, thought Old Jones. A scallywag either way.

The keel finally dawned near the dock. Some mariners fidgeted around tensely, excusing themselves back to labor, while others stuck to the dock, impervious. All seemed to be on alert. They observed keenly as the ship's anchors dived into the sea, but all failed to stick a name to the fleeting figures roaming on the ship's high deck.

"I don't think this be some nasty pirates, Jones. The ship looks real neat and tidy. The wood of it is freshly veneered. This be some flush prospector if ye want me piece of mind" Remarked a sailor.

Old Jones glanced over his shoulder and sneered at the younger man.

"And then what. If he be hiring hand, ye going to hop in his filthy vessel?" He spat deprecatingly.

"That's not-"

"Oh, I see your eyes shining, bucko. Money lust, I reckon." Old Jones said knowingly. "Young fools like ye be hunting down everything with a spit of luster. Bloody hell. I'd rather pay a visit to Davy John's locker myself than be one godforsaken fool."

A short moment later, the boy came running back from Old Jone's small ship. He took the gun from its stash; under his thin waistcoat, and handed it over to his shipmaster. At that same moment, a lithe but imposing silhouette loomed down the wooden lane and into the crammed dock.

It was a man with broad shoulders and long dreadlocks. For a moment, nobody seemed to recognize him.

Then a voice grunted from the back.

"Why, sink me! If that isn't Jack Sparrow!"

It was a man who hadn't budged from a battered, three legged stool poised in the shadows of a ship's prow.

He lurched over to the familiar man and beamed drunkenly, a bottle of rum swinging in his grip.

"Gibbs, my friend, you've grown chubby cheeks." Jack stated with the shadow of a smile.

"Aye, this bloody devil right here." Gibbs slurred, looking fondly at his bottle. "Has been telling me you'd come around. After five years, I almost quit believing it, but here you be! Ye changed, mate! Got all grown up and hunky." He lurched a playful fist to the taller man's rib, which he dodged.

"Ye know him?" Old Jones asked, tucking his weapon out of common view. Another motto of his was to never be the only feller with a raging tooth.

The crowd didn't disperse. They all knew who Jack Sparrow was. His legend preceded him, and so did the speculation of his death. Rumor had it he'd been killed at the fountain of youth trip, most likely dragged to the depth of the seas by them cunning mermaids. Gibbs was the lone man to know and say different, for he was there by the time and Jack was safe and hypothetically sain when they seperated.

For everyone else, what he was doing here, alive and on the commands of a breathtaking ship summoned a tempest of question marks, almost visible and detonating out of the patch of heads, including Gibbs's.

"If I know him!" Gibbs bawled, throwing his vacant hand in the air. "We sailed the seven seas together! Ain't that right, matey?" He patted Jack's shoulder but retrieved his hand quickly, as though he'd been burned.

"Whoa, Jack, ye even got yerself some muscle there, didn't ye! Ye been lifting whales?"

_No, just hunting down old ghosts until I got tired of it and stole my boat from a french merchant._

Jack said nothing and looked at him passively and Gibbs, through the thin layer of sobriety still clutching his guts, realized that something was the matter. His friend's eyes were never so dark. His hair had grown much longer, and most of the dreads seemed to have disappeared. The locks were loose and untidy, but the faded bandana and trinkets hadn't budged a notch.

But Jack didn't stand there, brooding in silence.

He was voluble and insane.

Gibbs shook off the sordid idea, thinking that whatever had gone upon him, it'll pass after a good gin.

Jack looked at Gibbs briefly. Old memories were resurfacing in his mind and, irrepressible, a smile curled his lips.

"Come along, would you?"

He ushered him out of the docks and into a narrow street nearby.

"Where are we going?" Gibbs asked, still jiggling his empty bottle around.

"For a talk. Unless ye have better business to attend to?" Jack offered.

"Business? Jack, I spent the last five years thinking ye were dead! Finding what the hell happened after you left, why you never came back like you said ye would and where you got the beauty ship _is _my goddamned business."

Jack nodded to himself as they both tucked into the small door of an old tavern.

He made a purpose of finding a quiet place to sit, but the whispering and pointing fingers rousing around him did little to calm his nerves. He winced surreptitiously before dropping onto a chair in the corner of the room.

Gibbs sat too, looking back at the sea of deadlights scanning them. If the people had been drinking and partying before they got in, now they ogled and pinched each other's arms.

The wenches lying around, not as discreet, were expressing their bafflement aloud to each other.

A young woman with a plain face and teeth stained from chewing tobacco beamed at them as she closed in.

"What can I get ye, fine gentlemen?" Jack lowered his hat and, chin on palm, looked elsewhere.

"A gin for me." Gibbs smiled back.

"Aye, what about ye, beauty stranger?"

"Whiskey." Jack muttered, never looking at the woman.

Stranger? She must be new in the tavern. Or in town, perhaps. Everyone around here knew his face.

He hadn't changed that much, had he?

She nodded seductively and went back on her trail to fetch the drinks. As she put them on the table, Gibbs eyed Jack with concern.

"What's the matter? The glint in a woman's eye don't appeal to your heed no more?"

Jack stared at his rings dispassionately.

"I need a favor" He mused.

"A favor? What kind of favor?"

"Lead me to men who'd accept to give up everything and work on my ship" Jack asked simply.

"Oh, well that's easy. Most of a crew's men have nothing to begin with." Gibbs took a sip from his drink and smiled.

"You don't understand." Jack begun, running a tired hand on his sun-kissed, sharp features. "I'm not coming back to Tortuga. Not in a year, not in a decade. Find me men who'd be ready to rove endlessly with a wicked captain in commands of the wheel."

"Where are you going, Jack?" A pucker appeared between Gibbs eyebrows.

"Nowhere. Everywhere. Chasing sunrise and unknown lands, mostly." Jack suggested, not very much knowing how to answer that himself.

"What about the pilfering?" Gibbs snarled, incredulous.

"There will be pilfering. Enough to let us keep moving, wind on sails and food in…guts" Jack furrowed his brows. God, it had been a long journey from Singapore.

"Shiver me timbers…Ye came back one changed man, matey. One changed man."

"You can bet your seat in hell on it" He mouthed in a steady, jaded tone.

"Will do." Gibbs laughed, not depicting the demons in his friend's eyes, and drank deeply.

Jack sipped down his whiskey, his mind cavorting elsewhere.

* * *

><p>The next day, Jack left his cabin at dawn. The air was brisk and heavily scented with the freshness of iodine. The loud cries of a woman had layered up on the pack of disturbances hindering his rest and making his night sleepless.<p>

As he tottered out to the docks, weary and unable to think properly, he knew only of his need to make it cease before he lost his mind.

Not that it wasn't already a done deal.

The evening was spent on laying Gibbs off the bottle and disposing of the curious klutzes who came to see him in flesh. After nighfall, the amount of alcohol spoiling Gibbs's blood clobbered him asleep early and Jack enjoyed a Cuban cigar and some peace and quiet in his cabin.

Then he got hungry, and ate as much korean ramen as he could muster, for the damned thing tasted so good he was glad to have met that asian trader back in Singapore.

Blasted asians and their papilla pleasing junk.

The thought still dwelled in his mind as he lifted a gas lamp towards the narrowing streets and houses ahead.

A stout man was hitting on a girl as it seemed. Their two contrastingly compiled figures were quite distinguishable in the gloom.

The man was trying to pull her into a street and she was yelling and kicking fiercely.

God Almighty, it was four in the morning.

Jack felt like the landlubber could use a good whopping for limiting the respite hours he allowed himself, the girl a good fright for being out this late, and he'd get to vent off his frustration at the goddamned world in the process. A win win.

With a wicked grin, Jack walked over to them.


	2. Chapter two: L'ange noir

Her blood boiled. Her heart quickened. It slammed against her ribcage, oozing with an eerie blend of fear and courage.

To the beholder's eye, she was a shadow pacing through a dark alley, not a spark of light in a world of murk. She was a hurried figure with arms braced against her chest, hauling something straight underneath her man's jacket. She was a girl in a Stetson hat, clad in loose-fitting slacks and worn boots, not a one racing away from misery and cradling her most valuable custody beneath her defunct father's apparel.

Who she truly was, a lost soul escaping hell on earth, running away from the devil's myrmidon like she had been plotting since her brother left.

It was late, and not many folks stood in a vacant narrow street to witness her pass by, but if any had, she'd have fitted the frame of a runaway maid, a stranger with nowhere to sleep or maybe, for those who would miss a peep at her face, a lad with an errand.

Once you looked at her face, it was unmistakable to depict her as a girl. Her eyes were vivid pools of jade, her lips two plush petals and her skin a fair handful of winter snow.

Tucking into a tight back street, she breathed out deeply. At the end of it, a little bit ahead, was the port of Tortuga.

At the end of the cramped little street, the girl and her cherished gear would reach light, freedom. The sea, wide and profound, what marvelous ticket to somewhere far away.

She could almost see it.

The soft shine of the distant water mat, folding and twirling under the twilight, calling, hypnotizing her…She could hear its promise of getaway…like a ballade…she walked to the rhythm of it.

But the night didn't comply to her wish, at least, not yet.

"Oy, me buxom beauty, were ye goin' without me?" A man said.

The girl had been too entranced by the luring horizon to notice the presence leaning against a wall at her right.

He was big and fat. He leered at her as he closed in, openly appraising what he could delineate beneath her shaggy clothes.

"Well, me hearty, came to brighten me night? Blimey joy!" He groaned disgracefully, violently riveting the girl against the nearest wall. Spare a weak gasp when her back hit the firm stone, she made no sound.

This was not feeling real to her. Her soul was still admiring the shimmering ripples of the sea, which it could almost palpate and smell. The man groping her shoulder was just a chimera, another myrmidon, his filthy hand on her shouldn't be feeling this real. She barely mulled about it, for her eyes found the sea again, and it felt good to admire it a bit longer.

"Here, little lady, look at me." His grubby hand grasped her chin and spun her face to his. His breath reeked of stale alcohol and tobacco. She wasn't looking at the sea anymore. His blasted hands…were real.

_Oh, now I understand. This is what's real, not my dream of escape. _

"It's cold here, let's go inside me shed, I'll make ye comfortable." He said roughly, grinning lewdly.

_But can't my dream be made real as well?_

"No." She whispered, much more to him than to her inner query.

"Come, I said."

"No!" She screamed. It was violent, because her soul had screamed. She tried to break free from the stinky man, but his hands were too strong as they pinned her to the humid, stone-manufactured wall.

"Let me go!" She shouted, refusing to be kept away from the glow so nearby.

"A feisty one, made for my likin'" He beamed, and his eyes darkened. He grabbed her face harder, chocking her, and pierced into her eyes. "You will come without a sound, wantonly and warmly." He proffered.

She felt a surge of tears tingle her sinus, but another of a different veneer, much stronger and strengthening made it abate.

And suddenly, her eyes darkened as well.

"Let me go." She repeated, this time calmly.

At the same time, Jack Sparrow walked in, his steps light and inaudible. None of them noticed him. He slipped into the threshold of a house and backed against the door. He watched the scene silently.

"Let ye go? Ye bloody wench!" He spat, tightening his grip on the girl.

"If you don't, I will make you." She said, all the fear deserting her troubling gaze, leaving it jaded and cold.

Jack gathered from a number of inklings that the girl was not out whoring. What he remarked next, from that unmistakable soulless tone she implemented as she spoke, made him raise a surprised eyebrow.

He kept watching, much more entertained.

"Make me? How would a meek, skinny—"

The fat man's breath was cut short when a well aimed hack impacted his groin and traded his balance for a heavy crash against the sticky ground. Dumbstruck, he looked up, his eyes vibrating with confusion and received a dark look that froze his blood to the core. The girl, still holding something close underneath her jacket, switched legs and pressed her left boot to his cheek, brushing it almost caressingly before she made it bite the ground and smiled queerly.

Jack was stunned. His first impression was accurate; nobody on their right mind knew how to smile like that. He was starting to feel extremely curious about the strange being smiling crookedly at her assailer, extremely curious indeed.

Under the moonlight, standing there wearing black and stepping on a landlubber's face, she had the riveting aura of an avenging angel. One who ogled at the sea far ahead like a celestial light, but its dim wings fell nicked and lifeless.

Jack smiled sinfully, enjoying the turn of events.

"Being touched by something like you." She started, smiling as the man moaned in pain and pressing his face harder into the ground. "Makes me want to purge myself."

Slowly, she retrieved her boot from him and as he staggered to get back on his feet, she conked him in the stomach, making him groan and cough miserably.

Without further verbalization, the puzzling girl walked away, as if an invisible magnet was drawing her ahead.

When she passed Jack by, he felt tempted to grab her wrist and pull her to him. He wanted to get a better look at the striking creature she was. But then again, the fun of following her would be ruined.

Smiling again to himself, Jack followed her to the docks.

He watched her as she skimmed the vessels from small boat to big ship, and paused to stare at _Ondine._

Then something caught her attention in her jacket and she opened it, pushed a lapel out of the way.

Jack watched her, his eyes widening when she extracted a babe from the stash.

She held it close, cuddling the hairless, toothless gesticulating bundle of life and Jack was nigh enough to hear her tell it things.

"Guess we're in this together, little buddy." She said, pinching the babe's nose. "Now stay still."

Tucking him back in the hefty cloth, the girl was apparently scheming a plan regarding Jack's ship for she hopped straight on the deck and began to look around.

The pirate was right behind her when she scanned her surrounding from quarterdeck to foremast, blatantly searching for a place to hide.

"There's an escape boat at the hull, a few steps ahead on your right. Should be the perfect hide, if I may interfere with your selective senses."

Hearing the subtle English carried through a rich, dark man's voice, the girl turned around quickly. The motion set a wisp of hair out the Stetson, which was the color of ebony. Jack noticed.

"Where did you…come from?" She asked, gawking at the tall, long-haired man who sported an unholy grin and looked at her with penetrating eyes of a muddy brown.

"Cloud Cuckoo Land." He replied sardonically.

"Huh?"

"Aristophanes, are you not familiar with his plays?" He asked casually, walking ahead very slowly.

"N-no…who are you?" She stammered.

"A no-blue-blood pirate, mostly. And yourself?"

Each step he made forward, she replicated backward, an inane reflex that wasn't much help for she was surrounded by arches.

"I'm…nobody" She said uneasily, not failing to spot the flintlock in its pitch black holster hanging down the man's hip.

"What business do you have, hiding on this ship?"

"None of yours." She said defiantly.

"Come on, it'll be our little secret." He urged, winking at her.

"All men are rascals, but can I trust a pirate?"

"All pirates are dodgy bastards, but do you have a choice?"

"You won't tell the captain, will you?" She asked, feeling further taken aback by his unusual lines.

Jack smiled viciously, and made a gesture of sealing his lips. The girl caught a glimpse of long bejeweled fingers as he did so.

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him." Jack complied.

"I need to leave Tortuga. If you help me hide, I will pay you."

"Then pay me." He purred, rejoicing in the prospect of unwrapping this girl's dirty little secret.

"I don't have much…" She muttered unsurely, fishing in her baggy trousers for currency.

"No, you do not." He agreed, looking at her crotch. "Why you wear those is a pure wonder."

"H-hey!" She yelled, outraged. "I favor comfort on corsets"

"That or you're disguising yourself to evade somebody." He proposed, now standing hazardously close to the girl. She avoided his glare and held onto her chest. "What's your name?"

"I cannot tell." She mouthed.

"I see." He mused. Then, pointing a finger at her jacket. "What's his?"

"Whose?" She panicked, feeling a stripe of cold sweat scurry down her back.

"The babe's." He replied simply.

"What babe?" she tried, hoping that he spoke a coded language of some sort.

Unannounced, his right hand zipped down her jacket and his left heaved a sleeping child out.

Realizing that she hadn't fidgeted to stop him, the girl raised a perplexed set of green gems to the pirate.

"How…how did you know?"

"Two of us can play at being sneaky."

"Then…will you hide us or not?"

Jack held the babe at a safe distance, investigating it like an odd UFO.

"I might have a place for you and your…little gremlin…How long do you intend to stay?"

"Until you cast anchors somewhere. I'll be gone first thing then."

"Hmm…"

"I…I have nothing of great value…nothing but this."

"What is it?"

"A locket" She tucked it from beneath the layers of cloth she was draped in.

"You'll give it to me as a warrant or a keeper?"

"Neither, it's something I cannot separate from. Inside of it, I keep a gold coin. It will be yours."

"I don't want your golden coin. Follow me." He said, giving her the child back.

She frowned. "What do you want? For the record, I will not let you touch me."

_"_Touching goes both ways, love." He said, opening a manhole and leading her down under deck "I might not let you either. Nevertheless, we'll find another way to compromise." He explained, ushering her inside the crew's sleeping quarters.

"Spend the night here. There is food in that locker." He turned to leave, but paused to say something.

"Oh, I almost forgot. You're going to be here for a while." His lips stretched devilishly."Costa Rica is one heck of a distant city."


	3. Chapter three: The last oath

The girl's name was Luna Smith. Under her oversize masculine jacket, she wore the lone heritage her mother left her, a wedding dress. It was made of hoary white lace mauled by mites and ringworms, but the slender silhouette was telltale of aristocracy and subtle precision. Its mandarin neckline was crimped with rare gemstones, its bodice pure velvet and the train long and thin lace. The last one, she crumpled it up her waist to fit into her father's slacks.

Luna was eighteen years old. During her early life, she had watched over her sick mother and a father whose lifelong aspiration was maltreating his wife and daughter. He drank by the gallon, vented his anger at his women and drank some more. He would fall asleep by dawn, wake up at noon, go whore in taverns, stay out for days until they thought him lost and come back unannounced to blame his wife for the misery they dwelled in, for the useless child she gave him, another mouth to feed for the jobless man he was.

It was a shame. Evangeline Reed was a woman of ravishing beauty and great honor. She had met Lionel Smith when she was young and lost and, having been raised among crooks, a warm smile and a wild daisy were all it took to make her heart throb.

Beautiful souls tend to be an easy prey, Luna thought.

Little did she know that life, after dragging her through an arcade of Golgotha, was right about to prove her wrong.

As she sat on a thin futon stripped of its bedding, Luna pulled a small bottle of milk from the back pocket of her jacket and carefully fed the newborn in her lap. Her name was Mimosa, she was a girl.

Looking at her big black eyes, roaming avidly over her face and all things around, Luna pulled on a lopsided smile.

"I can't believe I took you. Didn't I promise myself not to get attached? To anything…Mimosas included?"

Mimosa paused to spill a little of milk down her chin, and squealed adorably as it tickled her sensitive skin, making Luna laugh.

"This is a big mistake" She said, looking away with a sigh. "I shouldn't have brought you…I am digging my own grave."

Mimosa made a throaty sound and erupted laughing, snatching Luna out of her lamentation.

"What's so funny…" She muttered, annoyed at herself for finding it endearing.

_I should find her a nice family before I grow fond of her. God knows it wouldn't be too hard, look at those chubby cheeks…_

Adjudging it a convenient arrangement, Luna nodded to herself and eyed the child again.

Reason jagged at her, because it was in controversy with her heart. In spite of that, she didn't think that, given a chance to alter her decision, she actually would. She'd always been controlled by strong spontaneous pulses…all emanating from her heart.

And she regretted none.

As Mimosa started drifting to sleep, Luna began to feel a bit hungry too.

She was lucky to have found such a big, noble ship. She could as well have come across a crummy shipwreck. Instead, she was alone in a massive cabin which reeked of luxury and wealth.

The wooden parquet was polished and unmarred by scratches but few. Even the wood of it looked expensive. Clean futons were piled up in a farther corner, whilst others were allocated and juxtaposed in their suitable compartments.

Luna had dragged two on the floor for her and Mimosa, simply because she rejected all that was conventional.

She walked up to the locker on her right and found, with utter marvel, a stack of untouched goods.

Fresh apples, butter, bread, tomatoes, a loaf of cheese and beans flashed before Luna's starved eyes.

Smiling, she took out her pocket knife and spread the butter on a slice of bread. She disposed tomatoes and cheese on top.

She groaned with delight as her taste buds danced and capered, not remembering the last time she had had a proper meal. All she ate for a day was what she could steal from taverns.

And she was thinner than a bitch nursing twelve pups.

When she lay in her mattress, feeling hot and sweaty, she took of the tick Jacket and breathed hard. Adrenaline was still rushing in her system, her pulse palpitating.

She had done it.

Finally, after eighteen years of throe…it was over.

The sea was her liberator, her only true love in life. It would carry her away, to lands unseen and stories untold. To somewhere she would be alone, safe and free, at last.

Luna closed her eyes and cleared her mind.

_Touching goes both ways, love. I might not let you either._

Luna frowned, feeling uneasy.

_For that, you'd have to be proud. Men are not proud, they give away their body to whomever girl is willing to take it._

Then, she frowned a bit harder.

_Why am I thinking about this, of all the gunk I've been through today…_

Even as she closed her eyes, she could still see him. That mysterious pirate with dark eyes…

Her mother didn't warn her about the likes of him, but her father indirectly had. He reminded her of him, actually. Long hair, sharp face, luring eyes… Men like him came and dazzled inexperienced girls, then took everything from them and left them alone to cry on their plight.

Luna was not used to frequenting men, or even seeing them much, which made her quite the inexperienced egg.

But she walked through them with no hint of worry, for she had vowed to herself that no man would ensnare her into the blinding cage called love.

It was the last oath she had made to her mother before she died.

Love was naught but a con conjured by men to entrap foolish women.

And she was nowhere near being so.

_Just…why didn't he take the money…what other arrangement could there be?_

She was still thinking about it when weariness got the best of her and she fell into a deep slumber.


	4. Chapter four: Enslaved

**Bill:** Thank you for taking the time to review after reading my fiction. For the whiskey thing, when you've seen shit for five years, of which I will reveal in time, whiskey becomes your holy water.

Chapters from now on will be getting a bit short, but the posting will get regular for a while.

* * *

><p>Little after dawn, Jack Sparrow was awake and wallowing on his bunk.<p>

Propped on one elbow, he watched a black fur ball gnaw at a feather pen whilst kicking and growling in a tousle of linen sheets. Only seconds ago, he had been using it to scribble in a journal, but the kitten, deciding against it, uncurled from its sleeping position and leaped up his lap to confiscate it.

"Little bastard." He grumbled, and closed his periodical. "Being small, black and unreasonably cuddly doesn't permit you to rule the world."

The tiny cat emerged from a heap of white bedding and scurried across the berth, fussing its way through with gesticulating paws and itchy teeth.

Jack smirked, raising a brow at how attached he had grown to the brainless animal in its week of existing.

"enslaving things" He said, not pushing the cat away when it got tired of the pen and climbed up his chest to play with his hair knick-knack.

Hearing the racket of the hands returning aboard, he detached the kitten from a wisp of his hair and left the cabin.

They were heading for their quarters when they saw him and halted, colliding like iron balls in a Newton's Cradle.

_I can't let them go in yet. I need to settle things in there first._

As he scrutinized them, rowed and drunken, he realized that most had taken Tortuga as their final stop. There weren't loads of heads left. In fact, only four breeched freebooters still stood on his lacquered, oblong deck.

There was Dan.

He was a young Hispanic Jack had rescued three years ago from a bunch of sea truants after hijacking their ship. Coming from woe and going nowhere, he took him under his wing and made him cabin boy.

Shortly after, he found out that he was useless as a broken windmill, and kicked him out of his cabin to help on deck.

Dan, as the frantic, impulsive and dedicated fool he was, stuck along Jack with the heartfelt mission of saving his ass. Up to this day, he hadn't gotten around to it, for it was frequently the other way around.

Everywhere they went, every ship filching they made, Dan would appeal to hazard and embody impediment to the transaction.

Regardless, Jack let him straggle with his crew for something in that kid, something distant and wistful hit the buccaneer whenever he watched him fuss around to do his tasks accurately, do something plainly stupid or just make one of those blatant, exoteric statements he mastered the art of.

He reminded him of that hope-laden boy he used to be, now forever gone and buried.

"The likes of you" He would say to Dan. "Life kills and leaves breathing."

Or at other times "Stop acting so childishly. This is the sea, not a meadow of sunshine and dream."

The old, well built man staring right back at his captain was Loup.

_That dodderer can drink as much as a barrel of wine, and still stand there looking sober and wise._

Loup was a French marauder, as sagacious as a Cherokee and, beneath his tuff veneer, quite fond of Jack. They had met four years ago in Cuba. It had been a witty plan of his that got the pirate his beloved _Ondine._ In exchange, Loup requested to sail along, rule the galley with his fine cooking and never dwell in land too long. It was the moment Jack knew he had found a trustworthy companion willing to share his one-way journey toward sunrises he'd never seen, and his urgency inflated.

As for the two look-alike ginger heads struggling not to pass out, Joe and Barney, or 'ginger twins', Jack had recuperated them from a slave market. He learned afterwards that they were runaway prisoners disguised as slaves to keep on the safe side of iron bars.

They'd spend the day prowling by the mizzenmast or snatching the field-glass from each other's hands at the crow's nest. Nevertheless, they did get the job done and it was all Jack could ask from anyone he hired, for he was no reference of common sense himself.

"Cap'n. We missed ye at the tavern!" Slurred Barney, hanging on his brother for support.

"Aye, Cap'n. We spliced the main brace with claps of thunder." Nodded Dan, his eyes puffy and his lips swollen.

_What on earth have I done to deserve such a glut of imbeciles…?_

"Danny boy, lay off pirate glossary. Loup, have the kindness to feed these dumdums big mugs of coffee, as black and tar as it gets. I need them brought back to the living before Gibbs shows up with them new hands. Oh, and save me a cup." Jack instructed.

"Will do." Loup complied, and lead everyone else down the galley.

_Good. I need to go see that chit down there, now._

When he marched down the ladder leading to the crew's quarters, he was glad he had gone in first. The two mattresses thrown bluntly in the middle of the room wouldn't have been hard to miss by his men, and neither was the girl sleeping there.

_Hint number one: She has beastly manners._

Alongside her, the babe slept as well.

For a moment, Jack stared at the small bout of innocence before he indulged in contemplating the other.

The girl's hair had broken loose from its lace, sprawled over her head like an untamed halo. Her long, inky lashes rested peacefully against her pale cheeks and her mouth was slightly parted, a strip of drool going down her chin.

When he saw her white dress, realization went through him like thunder through a storm.

_Runaway bride, eh? One with a babe, too. _

_Not so innocent, the bonny kid._

_Hint number two does tell a lot, and yet, oddly, not enough._

"Wake up, girly." He ordered coolly.

Luna fidgeted and opened one eye. It took her a moment to take full cognition of what went on around her, then, seeing Jack, she jumped out the mattress.

"How come…I…overslept…I didn't even wake up when you walked in!"

"Why, I do take credit for grace in my step, thank you."

"Don't be so smart, if I hadn't been so tired, you'd have my dagger around your neck by now."

"Yes." Jack quipped, assessing her bed-head compilation. "Clearly"

"What's going on, are we sailing yet?"

"Not yet, new hands are being hired today. Until then, I need you to swap your wedding dress for breeches. Braid that hair, smudge your face with dirt, put your hat back on."

"Why?"

"Because you'll be sharing this place down here with men. Women hungry men. Under such circumstances, you wouldn't like to be a woman, would you?"

"I wouldn't fit as a man. I'm thinner than air."

"Wear these and be quiet until I call for you."

"Call for me?"

Jack didn't answer, he had already left the quarters, leaving Luna with a pair of clean breeches and something long underneath.

Bandage, she realized.


	5. Chapter five: Born to die

**Bill**: I am glad you've come to like this tale. Hopefully, the following chapter will not fail to strike your fancy.

**SissyPerigrin**: And continue I shall, thank you for your kind words.

* * *

><p>The sun rose delicately in a cloudless sky, the light blue tinge of it as unmarred as innocence. It flashed with warmth as the star soared across, espousing colors of rich auburn and gentle purple.<p>

A single linnet bird cut through the hot, sticky weather as it floated over Tortuga's Port, deliberately darting through a freshening mistral. The supple current, to whoever fellow having a morning walk, would be refreshing but mundane. As matter of fact, there was nothing mundane about it at all, for it channeled an otherworldly scent of rebirth.

The buccaneer standing on his quarterdeck was acutely aware of that.

That sweet whiff, brittle and addictive, bore the keystone of Jack's love for the sea.

Slouching against his Cabin's façade, his head propped backwards, he inhaled the tang of elegiac hypnosis with a hunger he couldn't name. With every breath he took, avidity and longing coursed through his veins, accentuated by the savage need to contain whatever sort of magic it was that flirted with his nostrils.

Within the tangled depths of his mind, he knew that the hunger he felt was no other than life, strong and flooding.

The one he was allowed to feel heart, body and soul in his rightful sanctuary.

The sea.

A haven and nothing less. Somewhere without lies and illusion hedging his maze.

At sea, one was never lulled with unattainable dream and pretty promise. One was endowed belonging, adventure lust, freedom and a free ticket to try one's hand at them beautiful things we seek.

For that, Jack had sworn to live and die a sailor, a rover, a pirate.

From the main deck, Dan and the ginger-heads scrutinized him with a mix of curiosity and concern.

"Ye think he's drunk, Barn'?" Joe asked his brother, nodding at his captain's aloof figure.

"If I think he's drunk…"Barney repeated in a hushed tone, scratching the intertwined hair on his chin. "Can't rightly say, he'd barely touched the rum we got from Galápagos, this morning."

"Maybe being sober is more unusual for his system than having alcohol in his blood. Maybe he's drunk over not bein' drunk."

"Plausibly, aye." Barney confirmed, studying the Captain with great concentration.

"What are you two ninnies prattling about?" Dan smacked the carroty men in the nape and urged them back to work. "Go check on them sails and leave the Cap'n be. If anyone alive is to understand him one day, it certainly isn't going to be you two pricks."

"Lay of me, lad! I could perform unimaginable registers of torture on one of you." Joe threatened, unyielding to the younger man's order.

"You aren't Cap'n, are ye? You're just a kid. I could show ye a hundred more ways of torture than Joe here." Barney joined in, fists on hips.

Dan didn't say a thing, he knew he didn't have to. The competitive gingers would soon stir skies of thunder to deem themselves better at torture.

"What ye sayin', Barn? Ye wanna think you can show this kid a bad time better than I can?"

"I don't wanna think about nothin', I know so. Momma raised only one fool, and it wasn't me."

"Oh, is that so? Come here and I'll give ye a free trial at me skill!"

"No, you come here and it's I who'll show ye pain."

"I'll feed you both to the sharks if you don't obey Dan and get busy. And stop minding me so much, obey him on that, too." Jack said softly, leaving the twins to wonder where the hell he had appeared from and how come he heard it all.

A handful of minutes later, Joshamee Gibbs showed up on the docks with three people on his tail.

"Jack!" he hailed aloud, immediately grabbing the man's attention."I got yer gents!"

Jack looked over his shoulder and spotted a bulk towering midst two averagely built men.

"Indeed you have." He muttered, frowning slightly at the bulk. He was inhumanly large.

He then turned to his crewmen and spoke.

"The freeloaders are here." Jack announced unceremoniously. "I'll see if they are worth keeping as hands or not. Until then, I expect you nitwits to mop off those goofy smiles and act sturdy. Savvy?"

"Aye" The men shouted in unison.

"Who are you fooling with that chitty holler…"Jack grumbled under his breath, heading down the ship to meet Gibb's recruits. Behind him, Dan was grinning royally at the twins and Loup had resurfaced from under deck to get a look at the newcomers.

"Good morning, pauper looking mate." Jack greeted his friend, secretly wondering if any odds of alcohol abstinence were in the man's favor for the next two or three hours. Judging by the glassy eyes and crimson complexion of his face, he had no intention of leaving before usurping half of Jack's cellar.

"Always the flatterer, Jack!" Gibbs grinned and brought down his hand on the pirate's shoulder with frightening speed, leaving him unable to object and grimacing.

"Those three men want in for yer cruisin', pal!" Gibbs said.

"Just three? Well, I always thought that Tortuga was the place where wretched souls came to die…looks like I was wrong."

"Ye know, most truly are but lack the bravery to detangle from their lives here."

"Eh" Jack sighed.

"Plus, most thought I was tricking them, they still think you are dead."

"Am I not?" Jack said with a slow smile, before heading toward the men.

"This is Gaby." Gibbs presented.

The man he first introduced was tall and thin. He appeared to be on his late fifties, with thinning black hair, a thick moustache and a fortnight's beard.

"What brings you here, Gaby?" Jack asked, squinting at the deeply disturbing facial hair decorating his chin.

"Me an' me brother 've seen it rough. We want to get away from it."

_Another set of brothers to quarrel with the twins…could it be?_

"Don't we all…" Jack agreed with a smile then he looked at the brother in question.

He was young, blond and quite winsome.

"This is Josh" Said Gabby. "He can't talk, but he's handy."

"I see." Jack whispered. "And you, big man?" he said to the formidable man forming a full width line on his own.

"I'm Smith. I came here to become a pirate."

"You don't become a pirate. It's either you are or you're not." Jack clarified.

"You know you can use one of me. I can lift enough cargo for two."

"Probably eat and drink enough for two as well, but touché anyhow."

Gibbs looked at Jack quizzically, and he replied his silent query with a sharp nod.

"You're all hired." Gibbs said to the three men.

"Welcome aboard" Jack smiled curtly.

* * *

><p>By midday, the sun soared to its zenith and, driven by mild wind, <em>Ondine <em>sailed on a tranquil bout of the Caribbean Sea.

Jack went down to the galley, tired of digesting air.

"Gibbs." Jack acknowledged then paused to raise an eyebrow at his comrade. "You stealthy sap, I thought you left."

"Jack" He accredited back, raising a big tin goblet at him. "Looks like I haven't."

"Why? I thought I was clear on cutting bonds with-"

"You're not cutting nothin' with me, though. I'm staying, until you decide to get rid of me."

"How about now?"

"I'm not going back to Tortuga by swim. Not without a fight."

"You're being serious, aren't you?"

Gibbs, seated at a massive, rectangular lumber table, looked at him dumbly. In his eyes was an eerie, barely palpable thirst for Jack's booze cellars. It was as if he had sworn an oath of unimpeded companionship to the bottles he knew he'd get plenty of if he stuck around, and was slowly turning into a liquor slave at that lumber table which the original French owner of the ship put there.

But Jack knew it was more than that.

"Good grief." he uttered, shaking his head in abandon. "Loup, coffee"

He sat on the empty stool next to Gibbs, his ornaments chiming like scattered pieces of a carillon.

Loup slid a mug of steaming dark coffee across the table, which ended up imprisoned between Jack's long, sun-tanned fingers.

"Jack…" Gibbs started, reticent.

"Eh?" He muttered, licking a drop of coffee from his lower lip.

"We're stopping somewhere tonight?"

"What makes you think that?"

"It's your birthday today. I'm sure your crew would like to celebrate that."

"I can't say I remembered it's today. Nevertheless, we're not stopping. Not until I reach Costa Rica."

"Heard miss Swan and that Turner kid are moving there. Last time I saw her, she was getting on a ship. She asked about you, rather fondly, if I may add."

Jack shrugged, uninterested.

"She's an easy prey, doesn't know what she wants. Women like that tend to speak rather fondly of me, for many obscure reasons." Jack replied, knowing exactly where Gibbs was heading.

"She said she knew you weren't dead. Womanly intuition and crap like that. Guess she was right."

"Bullshit."

Jack swallowed the rest of his hot, black beverage and left the table as swiftly as he had sat in.

"Gibbs, I have hired a new kid myself. He's in the crew's cabin, bring him to mine."

* * *

><p>Luna had followed the pirate's instructions and dressed herself as a boy. She knew they were sailing, she had heard them hoisting the anchors and unfurling sails. Now, all she could do was to sit and wait.<p>

Alone, she was practicing her manly voice when a presence disturbed her progress.

"The Captain wants to see you in his cabin." Gibbs said, looking at the skinny boy in a jacket too big and a Stetson.

When he saw the babe, a pucker appeared between his brows, but he said nothing and left the cabin.

As soon as he left, Luna felt herself panic, though none of it showed.

"Did that lunatic sell me off?" She groaned in a hushed tone, before deciding to calm down and think it over.

_Relax. He told me to wear breeches. The Captain's probably hiring me with his crewmen._

A hard, battered knife hidden beneath her breeches, she made sure Mimosa was still asleep before she left the cabin.

Quick, she paced through the main deck and up the quarterdeck, ignoring the ogling eyes of the crewmen and their loud interrogations about who the hell the lad she impersonated was.

When she knocked lightly at the cabin's door, no sound came out in response. It was ajar, and she took it as an inviting tip-off.

She had opened her mouth to declare herself, until what she saw made her voice break.


	6. Chapter six: Mine

When she stepped on the cabin's mahogany parquet, something dark and quick pranced toward Luna and vaulted on her right boot. She retreated back and stumbled against a heavy book littered by the door. By the time she realized the creature was a kitten, she had lost her steadiness and was going to land on it, finding nothing to catch on but handfuls of useless air and a familiar masculine gaze.

A quick hand grasped her wrist and swiftly hauled her upward.

Finding balance on her feet again, she raised her eyes to meet two chocolaty ones which looked back at her with an arcane glint.

Recognizing the man, surprise washed over her features.

Jack let her hand go, and it fell lifelessly at her side.

While she stared at him, he gently scooped up the kitten and held it up close.

"You almost fell." He said to the girl, contemptuous.

She kept mute.

"On this innocent bout of life" He continued, carefully stoking the cat's chin. Luna watched the subtle movement of his hand as he caressed the kitten, which responded with purrs and mewls of delight.

A deep frown appeared on her face.

"Cat got your tongue?" He quipped after a moment of torpor, during which he watched her as well.

Luna cleared her throat.

"Where is the Captain?" She drawled, her face decomposing into jaded outlet.

"I'm quite sure he's somewhere in this Cabin, wearing my breeches." He answered, smiling.

"You twisted-"

"As odd as it may ring to my own ears, I have no fancy for mirth at this moment." He said, interrupting. "I'm the only Captain of this ship. You know what they say about swashbucklers love, don't you? No quarters asked, and none given. In other words, I loathe freeloaders."

Jack put the cat to romp around and looked back at the girl.

Her face was stoic.

"Question is, what's stopping me from trussing you like a hen and unloading you in the sea, where you be having a lively jig with sharks, wishing you had chose another ship to slither into?"

"Curiosity" She replied simply.

Jack raised a startled eyebrow.

"It was curiosity that had you silently watch me with that man, prowling in the shadows of that dark street. It was also curiosity that had you permit my stay. You even helped me hide."

Jack smiled wolfishly.

"How did you know I was there, in that street?"

"I heard chiming sounds. The ones I recognized as wind moved your hair when you finally showed in front of me."

"How poetic." He smirked, closing up to the girl. "And highly accurate."

Luna smiled in triumph.

"Nevertheless." Jack said, witnessing her smile fade out with great delectation. "Curiosity, lust…"He trailed, whispering close to her ear. "Avidity" He pursued in a murmur, surreptitiously noting the girl's sharp intake of breath. "Are outlets I endow no human being."

Luna didn't know that the cat was no longer in his hands until something cold and whetted grazed her cheek. Realization swept through her as she saw him grip a cutlass's handle, and felt its long blade taunt and whisper against her skin.

"I don't like feeling curiosity for a thing like you." He spoke, a deep and distraught frown on his face. "But at the end of the day…this curiosity of mine…" The cutlass slipped beneath Luna's Stetson and slowly tucked it out, before it chucked it on the fancy parquet. "Doesn't need to be assuaged"

With a vivid, deft slit, the lace rent and the hair broke loose in long, ebony ripples.

Jack used the tip of his blade to lift up the girl's chin and said.

"Because it will not quench my thirst for all those unnamable things people like you and I understand so well. If you name me your demons, will it make mine wane away?" He smiled brokenly.

Luna's eyes gleamed with leashed fire, the golden flecks blazing like inferno in a pool of still green.

"You're like a poisonous, redundant Pandora box of which I opened many. I will either kill you right now…or let you go at Costa Rica, just as negotiated."

"Which will it be?" She said calmly, relaxing her body enough to stop the shaking.

"I have not decided yet." He said, backing away from her and striding across the cabin. "I do intend to use you first."

"Use me?"

"Use you." He repeated, and walked to her again. As he stood near, he surprised her with touching her hair. "I told you to braid it, not tie it up with a lace."

"What will you use me for?" She said after a moment, wondering why he was addressing to her softly all of a sudden.

He didn't answer. Instead, he led her onto a chair and when she sat, he started braiding her long hair.

Luna felt heat climb up her cheeks.

"What are you doing?"

"Get used to it. Up until we reach Costa Rica, you're mine. You sleep where I sleep, you eat from my plate and drink from my mug. You wake and sleep according to my wish, you act and speak at my command." Contrasting with his chilled tone, his motions were fluid and gentle as he overleaped the hair into a braid.

Hearing his words and feeling his light tugs on her scalp, Luna's blush grew deeper, and so did her anger.

"You said that you wouldn't touch me."

"And I didn't lie. I will only touch you enough to put clothes on you in the morning, and bathe you in the weekends."

Luna opened her mouth to speak, but her chest felt constricted with a combination of rage and…curiosity.

"Loup needs a hand with the cooking. Be that. At night, there will be festivity and drinking. Make sure you mingle well. If anybody discovers you're a girl, I will throw you off board."

With that, he was putting back the Stetson on her head.

Luna did as told. She helped Loup with the cooking, shoveling corn bread in the furnace's steaming mouth and stirring porridge. As she tasted the ingredients and added another pinch of black pepper, Loup observed quietly, but he didn't address to her spare the notification on the menu. She hadn't tried to flicker conversation either, it simply wasn't her style.

She ate in the galley, and quickly started dinner. Jack hadn't showed up to eat when the crew arrived in.

Late at night, booze was everywhere and the crewmen, drunk as skunks, jigged and danced on lively rhythms. The ginger twins were playing accordion, and Dan the flute.

Yet somehow, Jack was still locked up in his Cabin.

Luna tried to speak to the tall boy with the flute, asked him about what went on in the manliest voice she could muster.

"You're with the newcomers?"

"Aye." She replied.

"Well, little one, today is the cap'n birthday. We celebrate it 'till the morning."

"Oh."

"I wonder why he doesn't join us. Ye seen him, little one? What's yer name?"

"Uh…I'm…"

"Luke" Jack Sparrow's voice resounded in the night. "His name is Luke. He's my cabin boy."


End file.
